OUR PIRATE HOARD. 

By Thomas A. Janvier

Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothers

I

My great-great-great-uncle was one of the many sturdy, honest, high-spirited men to whom the early years of the last century gavebirth. He was a brave man and a ready fighter, yet was he evercontrolled in his actions by so nice a regard for the feelings ofothers, and through the strong fibre of his hardy nature ran a strainof such almost womanly gentleness and tenderness, that throughoutthe rather exceptionally wide circle of his acquaintance he was verygenerally beloved. 

By profession he was a pirate, and although it is not becoming in me, perhaps, to speak boastingly of a blood-relation, I would be doing hismemory injustice did I not add that he was one of the ablest and mostsuccessful pirates of his time. His usual cruising-ground was betweenthe capes of the Chesapeake and the lower end of Long Island; yet nowand then, as opportunity offered, he would take a run to the New Englandcoast, and in winter he frequently would drop down to the s'uthard anddo a good stroke of business off the Spanish Main. His home station, however, was the Delaware coast, and his family lived in Lewes, beingquite the upper crust of Lewes society as it then was constituted. Whenhis schooner, the _Martha Ann_, was off duty, she usually was harboredin Rehoboth Bay. That was a pretty good harbor for pirate schooners inthose days. 

My great-great-great-uncle threw himself into his profession in thehearty fashion that was to be expected from a man of his sincere, earnest character. He toiled early and late at sea, and on shore heregulated the affairs of his family so that his expenses should be wellwithin his large though somewhat fluctuating income; and the result ofhis prudence in affairs was that he saved the greater portion of what heearned. The people of Lewes respected him greatly, and the boys ofthe town were bidden to emulate his steady business ways and habit ofthrift. He was, too, a man of public spirit. At his own cost and chargehe renewed the town pump; and he presented the church--he was a veryregular churchgoer when on shore--with a large bell of singularly sweettone that had come into his possession after a casual encounter with aCuban-bound galleon off the Bahama Banks. 

And yet when at last my great-great-great-uncle, in the fulness of hisyears and virtues, was gathered to his fathers, and the sweet-tonedSpanish bell tolled his requiem, everybody was very much surprised tofind that of the fine fortune accumulated during his successful businesscareer nothing worth speaking of could be found. The house that he ownedin Lewes, the handsome furniture that it contained, and a sea-chest inwhich were some odds and ends of silverware (of a Spanish make) and somefew pieces-of-eight and doubloons, constituted the whole of his visiblewealth. 

For my great-great-great-aunt, with a family of five sons and sevendaughters (including three sets of twins) all under eleven years of age, the outlook was a sorry one. She was puzzled, too, to think what hadgone with the great fortune which certainly had existed, and so waseverybody else. The explanation that finally was adopted was that mygreat-great-great-uncle, in accordance with well established pirateusage, had buried his treasure somewhere, and had taken the secret ofits burial-place with him to another and a better world. Probability wasgiven to this conjecture by the fact that he had died in something of ahurry. He had been brought ashore by his men after an unexpected (andby him uninvited) encounter with a King's ship off the capes of theDelaware. One of his legs was shot off, and his head was pretty welllaid open by a desperate cutlass slash. He already was in a ragingfever, and although the best medical advice in Lewes was procured, hedied that very night. As he lay dying his talk was wild and incoherent;but at the very last, as my great-great-great-aunt well remembered, he suddenly grew calm, straightened himself in the bed, and said, withgreat earnestness: "Sheer up the plank midway--"

That was all. He did not live to finish the sentence. At the moment, my great-great-great-aunt believed the words to be nothing more than adelirious use of a professional phrase; and this belief received colorfrom the fact that a little before, in his feverish fancy, he had beencapturing a Spanish galleon, and had got about to the part of the affairwhere the sheering up of a plank midway between the main and mizzenmasts, for the accommodation of the Spaniards in leaving their vessel, would be appropriate. Thinking the matter over calmly afterwards, and inthe light of subsequent events, she came to the conclusion that he wastrying to tell her how and where his treasure was hid. Acting upon thisbelief, she sheered up all the planks about the house that seemed at allpromising. She even had the cellar dug up and the well dragged. But nota scrap of the treasure did she ever find. 

And the worst part of it was, that from that time onward our familyhad no luck at all. Excepting my elderly cousin, Gregory Wilkinson--whoinherited a snug little fortune from his mother, and expanded it intoa very considerable fortune by building up a large manufacture ofcarpet-slippers for the export trade--the rule in my family has been arespectable poverty that has just bordered upon actual want. But all thegenerations since my great-great-great-uncle's time have been cheered, as poverty-stricken people naturally would be cheered, by the knowledgethat the pirate hoard was in existence; and by the hope that some day itwould be found, and would make them all enormously rich at a jump. From the moment when I first heard of the treasure, as a little boy, Ibelieved in it thoroughly; and I also believed that I was the member ofthe family destined to discover it. 

II. 

I was glad to find, when I married Susan, that she believed in mydestiny too. After talking the matter over quite seriously, we decidedthat the best thing for us to do was to go and live either in or nearLewes, so that my opportunities for investigation might be ample. Ithink, too, that Susan was pleased with the prospect of having a nicelittle house of our own, with a cow and peach-trees and chickens, where we could be very happy together. Moreover, she had notions abouthouse-keeping, especially about house-keeping in the country, which shewanted to put into practice. 

We found a confirmation of my destiny in the ease with which thepreliminaries of my search were accomplished. The house that we wantedseemed to be there just waiting for us--a little bit of a house, wellout in the country, with a couple of acres of land around it, thepeach-trees really growing, and a shed that the man said would hold acow nicely. What I think pleased Susan most of all was a swallow's nestunder the eaves, with the mother swallow sitting upon a brood of dearlittle swallows, and the father swallow flying around chippering likeanything. 

"Just think of it!" said the dear child; "it is like living in a feudalcastle, and having kestrels building their nests on the battlements. "

I did not check her sweet enthusiasm by asking her to name someparticular feudal castle with a frieze of kestrels' nests. I kissed her, and said that it was very like indeed. 

Then we examined the cow-stable--we thought it better to call it acow-stable than a shed--and I pulled out my foot-rule and measured itinside. It was a very little cow-stable, but, as Susan suggested, ifwe could not get a small grown-up cow to fit it, "we might begin with ayoung cow, and teach her, as she grew larger, to accommodate herself toher quarters by standing cat-a-cornered, like the man who used to carryoxen up a mountain. " Susan's allusions are not always very clearlystated, though her meaning, no doubt, always is quite clear in her ownmind. I may mention here that eventually we were so fortunate as toobtain a middle-sized cow that got along in the stable very well. Wehad a tidy colored girl who did the cooking and the rough part of thehouse-work, and who could milk like a steam-engine. 

As soon as we got fairly settled in our little home I began to look formy great-great-great-uncle's buried treasure, but I cannot say thatat first I made much progress. I could not even find a trace of mygreat-great-great-uncle's house in Lewes, and nobody seemed ever to haveheard of him. One day, though, I was so fortunate as to encounter a veryold man--known generally about Lewes as Old Jacob--who did remember "theold pirate, " as he irreverently called him, and who showed me where hishouse had been. The house had burned down when he was a boy--seventyyears back, he thought it was--and across where it once had stood astreet had been opened. This put a stop to my search in that direction. As Susan very justly observed, I could not reasonably expect the Lewespeople to let me dig up their streets like a gas-piper just on thechance of finding my family fortune. 

I was not very much depressed by this turn of events, for I was prettycertain in my own mind that my great-great-great-uncle had not buriedhis treasure on his own premises. The basis of this belief wasthe difficulty--that must have been even greater in his time--oftransporting such heavy substances as gold and silver across the sandyregion between Lewes and where the _Martha Ann_ used to lie at anchorin Rehoboth Bay. I reasoned that, the burial being but temporary, myrelative would have been much more likely to have interred his valuablesat some point on the land only a short distance from the _Martha Ann's_anchorage. When I mentioned this theory to Susan she seemed to be verymuch impressed by the common-sense of it, and as I have a great respectfor Susan's judgment, her acquiescence in my views strengthened my ownfaith in them. 

To pursue my search in the neighborhood of Rehoboth Bay it was necessarythat I should have the assistance of some person thoroughly familiarwith the coast thereabouts. After thinking the matter over I decidedthat I could not do better than take Old Jacob into my confidence. So Igot the old man out to the Swallow's Nest--that was the name that Susanhad given our country place: only by the time that she had settled uponit the little swallows had grown up and the whole swallow family hadgone away--under pretence of seeing if the cow was all right (Old Jacobwas a first-rate hand at cow doctoring), and while he was looking at thecow I told him all about the buried treasure, and how I wanted himto help me find it. When I put it in his head this way he rememberedperfectly the story that used to be told about the old pirate'smysteriously lost fortune, and he entered with a good deal of spiritinto my project for getting it again. Of course I told him that if wedid find it he should have a good slice of it for helping me. I toldSusan that I had made this promise, and she said that I had done exactlyright. So, after we had given him a good supper, Old Jacob went back toLewes, promising that early the next week, after he had got through ajob of boat-painting which he had on hand, he would go over with me, andwe would begin operations on the bay. He seemed to think the case verypromising. He said that when he was only a tot of a boy his father hadpointed out to him the _Martha Ann's_ anchorage, and that he thought hecould tell to within a cable's length of where the schooner used tolie. I did not know how long a cable was, but from the tone in whichOld Jacob spoke of it I judged that it must be short. I felt very wellpleased with the progress that I was making, and when I told Susan allthat Old Jacob had told me, she said that she looked upon the wholematter as being as good as settled. Indeed, she kept me awake quitea while that night while she sketched the outlines of thejourney in Europe that we would take as soon as I could get mygreat-great-great-uncle's treasure dug up, and its non-interest-bearingdoubloons converted into interest-bearing bonds. 

III. 

The day after I had this talk with Old Jacob I was rather surprised bygetting a telegram from my cousin Gregory Wilkinson, telling me that hewas coming down to pay us a visit, and would be there that afternoon. Iwas not as much astonished as I would have been if the telegram had comefrom anybody else, because Gregory Wilkinson had a way of telegraphingthat he was going to do things which nobody expected him to do, and Iwas used to it. Moreover, I had every reason for desiring to maintainvery friendly relations with him. He had told me several times that hehad made a will by which his large fortune was to be divided betweenme and a certain Asylum for the Relief and Education of Destitute RedIndian Children that he was very much interested in; and he had morethan hinted that the asylum was not the legatee that was the more to beenvied. This made me feel quite comfortable about the remote future, butit did not simplify the problem of living comfortably in the immediatepresent. My cousin was a very tough, wiry little man, barely turned offifty. There was any quantity of life left in him--his father, who hadbeen just such another, had lived till he was eighty-nine. There was notmuch of a chance, therefore, that either the asylum or I would receiveanything from his estate for ever so long--and I may add I was veryglad, for my part, that things were that way. Gregory Wilkinson was afirst-rate fellow, for all his queerness and sudden ways, and I shouldhave been sorry enough to have been his chief heir. One reason why Iliked him so much was because he was so fond of Susan. When we weremarried--although he had not seen her then--he sent her forks, and hehad lived up to those forks ever since. 

Susan was rather flustered when I showed her the telegram; but she wentto work with a will, and got the little spare room in order, and stewedsome peaches and made some biscuits for supper. Susan's biscuits weresomething extraordinary. Gregory Wilkinson came all right, and aftersupper--he said that it was the nicest supper he had eaten in a longwhile--she did the honors of the Swallow's Nest in the pretty way thatis her especial peculiarity. She showed him the cow-stable, with the cowin it, and the colored girl milking away in her usual vigorous fashion, the chickens, the garden, the peach-trees, and the nest under the eaveswhere the swallows had lived when we first came there. Then, as it grewdark, we sat on the little veranda while we smoked our cigars--that is, Gregory Wilkinson and I smoked: all that Susan did was to try to pokeher finger through the rings which I blew towards her--and I told why wehad come down there, and what a good start we had made towards findingmy great-great-great-uncle's buried money. And when I had got through, Susan told how, as soon as I had found it, we were going to Europe. 

We neither of us thought that Gregory Wilkinson manifested as muchenthusiasm in the matter as the circumstances of the case demanded; butthen, as Susan pointed out to me, in her usual clear-headed way, it wasnot reasonable to expect a man with a fortune to be as eager to get oneas a man without one would be. 

"Very likely he'll give us his share for finding it, " said Susan; "hedon't want it himself, and it would be dreadful to turn the heads of allthose destitute red Indian children by leaving it to them. "

I should have mentioned earlier that, so far as we knew, my cousin and Iwere my great-great-great-uncle's only surviving heirs. The familyluck had not held out any especially strong temptations in the way ofpleasant things to live for, and so the family gradually had died off. Whatever my search should bring to light, therefore, would be dividedbetween us two. 

By the time that Old Jacob got through with his boat-painting, GregoryWilkinson had gathered a sufficient interest in our money-digging tovolunteer to go along with us to the bay. We had a two-seated wagon, and I took with me several things which I thought might be useful inan expedition of this nature--two spades, a pickaxe, a crow-bar, ameasuring tape that belonged to Susan, an axe, and a lantern (for, asSusan very truly said, we might have to do some of our digging afterdark). I took also a pulley and a coil of rope, in case the box oftreasure should prove so heavy that we could not otherwise pull it outfrom the hole. Old Jacob knew all about rigging tackle, and said thatwe could cut a pair of sheer-poles in the woods. We were very muchencouraged by the confident way in which Old Jacob talked about cuttingsheer-poles; it sounded wonderfully business-like. Susan, of course, wasvery desirous of going along, and I very much wanted to take her. Butas we intended to stay all night, in case we did not find the treasureduring our first day's search, and as the only place where we couldsleep was an oysterman's shanty that Old Jacob knew about, she sawherself that it would not do. So she made the best of staying at home, in her usual cheery fashion, and promised, as we drove off, to have afamous supper ready for us the next night--when we would come home withour wagon-load of silver and gold. 

It was a long, hot, dusty drive, and the mosquitoes were pretty badas we drew near the coast. But we were cheered by the thought ofthe fortune that was so nearly ours, and we smoked our pipes at themosquitoes in a way that astonished them. After we had taken out thehorses and had eaten our dinner (Susan had put us up a great basket ofprovisions, with two of her own delicious peach pies on top) we walkeddown to the bay-side, with Old Jacob leading, to look for the placewhere the _Martha Ann_ used to anchor. I took the tape-measure along, both because it might be useful, and because it made me think of Susan. 

I was sorry to find that the clearer the lay of the land and waterbecame, the more indistinct grew Old Jacob's remembrance of where hisfather had told him that the schooner used to lie. 

"It mought hev ben about here, " he said, pointing across to a little baysome way off on our left; "an' agin it mought hev ben about thar, " witha wave of his hand towards a low point of land nearly half a mile offon our right; "an' agin it mought hev ben sorter atwixt an' at ween 'em. Here or hereabouts, thet's w'at I say; here or hereabouts, sure. "

Now this was perplexing. My plan, based upon Old Jacob's assurance thathe could locate the anchorage precisely, was to hunt near the shore forlikely-looking places and dig them up, one after another, until wefound the treasure. But to dig up all the places where treasure might beburied along a whole mile of coast was not to be thought of. We imploredOld Jacob to brush up his memory, to look attentively at the shape ofthe coast, and to try to fix definitely the spot off which the schoonerhad lain. But the more that he tried, the more confusing did hisstatements become. Just as he would settle positively--after muchthinking and much looking at the sun and the coast line--on a particularspot, doubts would arise in his mind as to the correctness of hislocation; and these doubts presently would resolve themselves intothe certainty that he was all wrong. Then the process of thinking andlooking would begin all over again, only again to come to the samedisheartening end. The short and long of the matter was that we spentall that day and a good part of the next in wandering along the bay-sidein Old Jacob's wake, while he made and unmade his locations at therate of about three an hour. At last I looked at Gregory Wilkinson andGregory Wilkinson looked at me, and we both nodded. Then we told OldJacob that we guessed we'd better hitch up the horses and drive home. Itmade us pretty dismal, after all our hopes, to hitch up the horses anddrive home that way. 

My heart ached when I saw Susan leaning over the front gate watching forus as we drove up the road. The wind was setting down towards us, and Icould smell the coffee that she had put on the fire to boil as soon asshe caught sight of us--Susan made coffee splendidly--and I knew thatshe had kept her promise, and had ready the feast that was to celebrateour success; and that made it all the dismaller that we hadn't anysuccess to celebrate. 

When I told her how badly the expedition had turned out she came verynear crying; but she gave a sort of gulp, and then laughed instead, anddid what she could to make things pleasant for us. We had our feast, butnotwithstanding Susan's effort to be cheerful, it was about as dreary afeast as I ever had anything to do with. We brought Old Jacob in and lethim feast with us; and he, to do him justice, was not dreary at all. He seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. Indeed, the most trying part of thatsorrowful supper-party was the way in which Old Jacob recovered hisspirits and declared at short intervals that his memory now wasall right again. He even went so far as to say that with his eyesblindfolded and in the dark he could lead us to the precise spot offwhich the schooner used to lie. 

Susan was disposed to regard these assertions hopefully; but we, whohad been fumbling about with him for two days, well understood theirbaselessness. It was not Old Jacob's fault, of course, but his defectivememory certainly was dreadfully provoking. Here was an enormous fortuneslipping through our lingers just because this old man could notremember a little matter about where a schooner had been anchored. 

After he had eaten all the supper that he could hold--which was a gooddeal--and had gone home, we told Susan the whole dismal story of how ourexpedition had proved to be a total failure. It was best, we thought, not to mince matters with her; and we stated minutely how time aftertime the anchorage of the schooner had been precisely located, and thenin a little while had been unlocated again. She saw, as we did, that asa clew Old Jacob was not much of a success, and also that he was aboutthe only thing in the least like a clew that we possessed. Realizingthis latter fact, and knowing that his great age made his death probableat any moment, Susan strongly advised me, in her clear-sighted way, tohave him photographed. 

IV. 

Gregory Wilkinson seemed to find himself quite comfortable in our littlehome, and settled down there into a sort of permanency. We were glad tohave him stay with us, for he was a first-rate fellow, and always goodcompany in his pleasant, quiet way, and he told us two or three timesthat he was enjoying himself. He told me a great many more than two orthree times that he considered Susan to be a wonderfully fine woman;indeed, he told me this at least once every day, and sometimes oftener. He was greatly struck--just as everybody is who lives for any lengthof time in the same house with Susan--by her capable ways, and by herunfailing equanimity and sweetness of temper. Even when the colored girlfell down the well, carrying the rope and the bucket along with her, Susan was not a bit flustered. She told me just where I would find theclothes-line and a big meat-hook; and when, with this hastily-improvisedapparatus, we had fished the colored girl up and got her safely ondry land again, she knew exactly what to do to make her all right andcomfortable. As Gregory Wilkinson observed to me, after it was all over, from the way that Susan behaved, any one might have thought that hookingcolored girls up out of wells was her regular business. 

As to making Susan angry, that simply was impossible. When things wentdesperately wrong with her in any way she would just come right to meand cry a little on my shoulder. Then, when I had comforted her, shewould chipper up and be all right again in no time. Gregory Wilkinsonhappened to come in one day while a performance of this sort was goingon, and for fear that he should think it odd Susan explained to him thatit was a habit of hers when things very much worried her and she feltlike being ugly to people. (The trouble that day was that the coloredgirl, who had a wonderful faculty for stirring up tribulation, hadbroken an India china teacup that had belonged to Susan's grandmother, and that Susan had thought the world of. ) That evening, while we weresitting on the veranda smoking, and before Susan, who was helping clearthe supper-table, had joined us, Gregory Wilkinson said to me, withoven, more emphasis than usual, that Susan was the finest woman he hadever known; and he added that he was very sorry that when he was my agohe had not met and married just such another. 

He and I talked a good deal at odd times about the money that ourgreat-great-great-uncle the pirate had buried, and that through allthese years had stayed buried so persistently. He did not take muchinterest in the matter personally, but for my sake, and still more forSusan's sake, he was beginning to be quite anxious that the money shouldbe found. He even suggested that we should take Old Jacob over to thebay-side and let him try again to find the _Martha Ann's_ anchorage; buta little talk convinced us that this would be useless. The old man hadbeen given every opportunity, during the two days that we had cruisedabout with him, to refresh his memory; and we both had been the painedwitnesses of the curious psychological fact that the more he refreshedit, the more utterly unmanageable it had become. The prospect, weagreed, was a disheartening one, for it was quite evident that for ourpurposes Old Jacob was, as it were, but an elderly, broken reed. 

About this time I noticed that Gregory Wilkinson was unusually silent, and seemed to be thinking a great deal about something. At first wewere afraid that he was not quite well, and Susan offered him both herprepared mustard plasters and her headache powders. But he said that hewas all right, though he was very much obliged to her. Still, he kepton thinking, and he was so silent and preoccupied that Susan and Iwere very uncomfortable. To have him around that way, and to be alwayswondering what he could possibly be thinking about, Susan said, made herfeel as though she were trying to eavesdrop when nobody was talking. 

One afternoon while we were sitting on the veranda--Susan and I tryingto keep up some sort of a conversation, and Gregory Wilkinson thinkingaway as hard as ever he could think--a thin man in a buggy drove downthe road and stopped at our hitch-ing-post. When he had hitched hishorse he took out from the after-part of the buggy a largo tin vesselstanding on light iron legs, and came up to the house with it. He madeus all a sort of comprehensive bow, but stopped in front of Susan, setthe tin vessel upon its legs, and said:

"Madam, you behold before you the most economical device and thegreatest labor-saving invention of this extraordinarily devicious andrichly inventive age. This article, madam"--and he placed his handupon the tin vessel affectionately--"is Stowe's patent combinationinterchangeable churn and wash-boiler. "

Susan did not say anything; she simply shuddered. 

"As at present arranged, madam, " the man went on, "it is a churn. Standing thus upon these light yet firm legs" (the thing wobbledoutrageously), "with this serviceable handle projecting from the top, and communicating with an exceptionally effective churning apparatuswithin, it is beyond all doubt the very best churn, as well as thecheapest, now offered on the American market. But observe, madam, thatas a wash-boiler it is not less excellent. By the simple process ofremoving the handle, taking out the dasher, and unshipping the legs--thework, as you perceive, of but a moment--the process of transformationis complete. As to the trifling orifice that the removal of the handleleaves in the lid, it becomes, when the wash-boiler side of thisProtean vessel is uppermost, a positive benefit. It is an effectivesafety-valve. Without it, I am not prepared to say that the boiler wouldnot burst, scattering around it the scalded, mangled remains of yourwasher-woman and utterly ruining your week's wash. 

"And mark, madam, mark most of all, the economy of this invention. Ineed not say to you, a housekeeper of knowledge and experience, that churning-day and wash-day stand separate and distinct upon yourhousehold calendar. Under no circumstances is it conceivable that thechurn and the wash-boiler shall be required for use upon the same day. Clearly the use of the one presupposes and compels the neglect of theother. Then why cumber your house with these two articles, equally largeand equally unwieldly, when, by means of the beautiful invention thatI have the honor of presenting to your notice, the two in one can beunited, and money and house-room alike can be saved? I trust, madam, Ibelieve, that I have said enough to convince you that my article is allthat fancy can paint or bright hope inspire; that in every householdmade glad by its presence it will be regarded always and forever as aheaven-given boon!" Suddenly dropping his rhetorical tone and comingdown to the tone of business, the man went on: "You'll buy one, won'tyou? The price--"

The change of tone seemed to arouse Susan from the spellbound conditionin which she had remained during this extraordinary harangue. 

"O-o-o-oh!" she said, shudderingly, "do take the horrid, horrid thingright away!" Then she fled into the house. 

I was very angry at the man for disturbing Susan in this way, and I toldhim so pretty plainly; and I also told him to get out. At this juncture, to my astonishment, Gregory Wilkinson interposed by asking what thething was worth; and when the man said five dollars, he said that hewould buy it. The man had manifested a disposition to be ugly whileI was giving him his talking to, but when he found that he had made asale, after all, he grew civil again. As he went off he expressed thehope that the lady would be all right presently, and the convictionthat she would find the combination churn and wash-boiler a householdblessing that probably would add ten years to her life. 

"What on earth did you buy that for?" I asked, when the man had gone. 

"Oh, I don't know. It seems to be a pretty good wash-boiler, anyway. I heard your wife say the other day that she wanted a wash-boiler. Sheneedn't use it as a churn if she don't want to, you know. "

"But my wife never will tolerate that disgusting thing, with its horridsuggestiveness of worse than Irish uncleanliness, about the house, " Iwent on, rather hotly. "I really must beg of you to send it away. "

"All right, " he answered. "I'll _take_ it away. I'm going to New Yorkto-morrow, and I'll take it along. "

"And what ever will you do with it in New York?" I asked. 

"Well, I can't say positively yet, but I guess I'll send it out to theasylum. They'd be glad to get it there, I don't doubt--not as a churn, you know, but for wash-boiling. "

Then he went on to tell me that one of the things that he especiallywanted done at the asylum with his legacy was the construction of asteam-laundry, with a thing in the middle that went round and round, anddried the clothes by centrifugal pressure. He explained that the asylumwas only just starting as an asylum, and was provided not only withvery few destitute red Indian children, but also with very few of theappliances which an institution of that sort requires, and that wasthe reason why he had selected it, in preference to many other verydeserving charities, to leave his money to. 

I must say that I was glad to hear him talking in this strain, for hissudden announcement of his intended departure for New York, just afterI had spoken so warmly to him, made me fear that I had offended him. Butit was clear that I hadn't, and that his going off in this unexpectedfashion did not mean anything. He always did have a fancy for doingthings suddenly. 

Susan was worried about it, in just the same way, when I told her; butshe ended by agreeing with me that he was not in the least offended atanything. Indeed, that evening we both were very much pleased to noticewhat good spirits he was in. His preoccupied manner was entirely gone, and, for him, he was positively lively. Evidently, whatever the thingwas that he had been thinking about so hard, he had settled it in a waythat satisfied him. 

Just as we were going to bed he told me, in what struck me at the timeas rather an odd tone, that he was under the impression that he hadsomewhere a chest full of old family papers, and that possibly amongthese papers there might be something that would tell me how to find thefortune that Susan and I certainly deserved to have. As he said thishe laughed in a queer sort of way, and then he looked at Susan veryaffectionately, and then he took each of us by the hand. 

"Oh!" said Susan, rapturously (when Susan is excited she always beginswhat she has to say with an "Oh!" I like it). "To think of finding apiece of old yellow parchment with a quite undecipherable cryptogramwritten on it in invisible ink telling us just where we ought to dig!How perfectly lovely! Why _didn't_ you think of it sooner?"

"Because I have been neither more nor less than a blind old fool. And--and I have to thank you, my dear, " he continued, still speaking inthe queer tone, "for having effectually opened my eyes. " As he made thisself-derogatory and quite incomprehensible statement he turned to Susan, kissed her in a great hurry, shook our hands warmly, said goodnight, andtrotted off up-stairs to his room. His conduct was very extraordinary. But then, as I have already mentioned, Gregory Wilkinson had a way ofalways doing just the things which nobody expected him to do. 

He had settled back into his ordinary manner by morning; at least he wasnot much queerer than usual, and bade us good-bye cheerily at the Lewesrailway station. I had hired a light wagon and had driven him over intime for the early train, bringing Susan along, so that she might seethe last of him. What with all three of us, his trunk and valise, andthe churn-wash-boiler, we had a wagon-load. 

Susan was horrified at the thought of his giving the churn-wash-boilerto the asylum. "Even if they only are allowed to use it as awash-boiler, " she argued, earnestly, "think what dreadful ideas ofuntidiness it will put into those destitute red Indian children'sheads!--ideas, " she went on, "which will only tend to make them disgraceinstead of doing credit to the position of easy affluence to which yourlegacy will lift them when they return to their barbaric wilds. Ifyou _must_ give it to them, at least conceal from them--I beg of you, conceal from them--the fatal fact that it ever was meant to be a churntoo. "

Gregory Wilkinson promised Susan that he would conceal this fact fromthe destitute red Indian children; and then the train started, and heand the churn-wash-boiler were whisked away. We really were very sorryto part with him. 

V. 

Two or three days later I happened to meet Old Jacob as I was comingaway from the post-office in Lewes, and I was both pained and surprisedto perceive that the old man was partially intoxicated. When he caughtsight of me he came at me with such a lurch that had I not caught himby the arm he certainly would have fallen to the ground. At first heresented this friendly act on my part, but in a moment he forgot hisanger and insisted upon shaking hands with me with most energeticwarmth. Then he swayed his lips up to my ear, and asked in a hoarsewhisper if that old cousin chap of mine had got home safely the nightbefore; and wanted to know, with a most mysterious wink, if things wasall right _now_. 

I was grieved at finding Old Jacob in this unseemly condition, and Ialso was ruffled by his very rude reference to my cousin. I endeavoredto disengage my hand from his, and replied with some dignity that Mr. Wilkinson at present was in New York, whither he had returned severaldays previously. But Old Jacob declined to relinquish my hand, and, with more mysterious winks, declared in a muzzy voice that I might trust_him_, and that I needn't say that my cousin was in New York, when heand him had been a-ridin' around together to the bay and back ag'in onlythe day before. And then he went off into a rambling account of thisexpedition, which in its main features resembled the expedition thatwe all three had taken together, but which displayed certain curiousdetails as it advanced that I could not at all account for. By all oddsthe most curious of these details was that they had taken along withthem a large tin vessel, Old Jacob's description of which talliedstrangely closely with that of the churn-wash-boiler, and that they hadleft it behind them when they returned. But as he mixed this up witha lot of stuff about having shown my cousin the course of an old creekthat a storm had filled with sand fifty years and more before, I couldnot make head nor tail of it. 

Yet somehow there really did seem to be more than mere drunken fancy inwhat he was telling me; for in spite of his muzzy way of telling it, hisstory had about it a curious air of truth; and yet it all was so utterlypreposterous that belief in it was quite out of the question. Tomake matters worse, when I begged the old man to try to remember verycarefully whether or not he really had made a second trip to the bay, or only was telling me about the trip that the three of us had madetogether, he suddenly got very angry, and said that he supposed Ithought he was drunk, and if anybody was drunk I was, and he'd fight mefor five cents any time. And then he began to shake his old fists atme, and to go on in such a boisterous way that, in order to avoid a veryunpleasant scene upon the public streets, I had to leave him and comehome. 

When I told Susan the queer story that Old Jacob bad told me she wasas much perplexed and disturbed by it as I was. To think of GregoryWilkinson driving around the lower part of the State of Delaware in thissecret sort of way, in company with Old Jacob and the churn-wash-boiler, as she very truly said, was like a horrible dream; and she asked me topinch her to make sure that it wasn't. 

"But even pinching me don't prove anything, " she said, when I hadperformed that office for her. "For--don't you see?--I might dream thatI was dreaming, and asked you to pinch me, and that you did it; and Isuppose, " she went on, meditatively, "that I might even dream that Iwoke up when you pinched me, and yet that I might be sound asleep allthe while. It really is dreadfully confusing, when you come to thinkof it, this way in which you can have dreams inside of each other, likelittle Chinese boxes, and never truly know whether you're asleep orawake. I don't like it at all. "

Without meaning to, Susan frequently talks quite in the manner of aGerman metaphysician. 

The next day we received a letter from Gregory Wilkinson that we hoped, as we opened it, would clear up the mystery. But before we had finishedit we were in such a state of excitement that we quite forgot that therewas any mystery to clear up. My cousin wrote from his home in New York, and made no allusion whatever to a second visit to Lewes, still less toa second expedition with Old Jacob to Rehoboth Bay. After speaking verynicely of the pleasant time that he had passed with us, he continued:

"I enclose a memorandum that seems to have a bearing upon thewhereabouts of the hidden family fortune. I am sorry, for Susan's sake, that it is neither invisible nor undecipherable; but I think that forpractical purposes visible ink and readable English are more useful. Iadvise you to attend to the matter at once. It may rain. "

The enclosure was a scrap of paper, so brown with age that it lookedas though it had been dipped in coffee, on which was written, inastonishingly black ink, this brief but clear direction:

_Sheer uppe ye planke midwai atween ye oake and ye hiccorie saplyngs 7fathom Est of Pequinky crik on ye baye. Ytte is all there_. 

There was no date, no signature, to this paper, but neitherSusan nor I doubted for a moment that it was the clew to mygreat-great-great-uncle's missing fortune. With a heart almost too fullfor utterance, Susan went straight across the room to the big dictionary(Gregory Wilkinson had given it to us at Christmas, with a handy ironstand to keep in on), and in a trembling voice the dear child told me inone single breath that a fathom was a measure of length containing sixfeet or two yards, generally used in ascertaining the depth of the sea. Then, without waiting to close the dictionary, she throw herself into myarms and asked me to kiss her hard!

Susan wanted to start right off that afternoon--she was determined togo with me this time, and I had not the heart to refuse her; but Irepresented to her that night would be upon us before we could getacross to the bay, and that we had better wait till morning. But I atonce went over and hired the light wagon for the next day, and then wegot together the things which we deemed necessary for the expedition. The tape-measure, of course, was a most essential part of the outfit. Susan declared that she would take exclusive charge of that herself;it made her feel that she was of importance, she said. During all theevening she was quite quivering with excitement--and so was I, for thatmatter--and I don't believe that we slept forty winks apiece all nightlong. 

We were up bright and early, and got off before seven o'clock--afterSusan had given the colored girl a great many directions as to what sheshould and should not do while we were gone. This was the first timethat we ever had left the colored girl alone in the house for a wholeday, and Susan could not help feeling rather anxious about her. It wouldbe dreadful, she said, to come home at night and find her bobbing up anddown dead at the bottom of the well. 

As we drew near the bay I asked several people whom we happened to meetalong the road if they knew where Pequinky Creek was, and I was rathersurprised to find that they all said they didn't. At last, however, we were so fortunate as to meet with quite an old man who was ableto direct us. He seemed to be a good deal astonished when I put thequestion to him, but he answered, readily:

"Yes, yes, o' course I knows where 'tis--'tain't nowhere. Why, youngman, there hain't ben any Pequinky Crik fur th' better part o' sixtyyear--not sence thet gret May storm druv th' bay shore right up on eendan' dammed th' crik short off, an' turned all th' medders thereaboutsinter a gret nasty ma'sh, an' med a new outlet five mile an' more awayt' th' west'ard. Not a sign o' Pequinky Crik will you find at thisday--an' w'at I should like ter know is w'ere on yeth a young fellerlike you ever s' much as heerd tell about it. "

This was something that I had not counted on, and I could see that Susanwas feeling very low in her mind. But by questioning the old man closelyI gradually got a pretty clear notion of where the mouth of the creekused to be; and I concluded that, unless the oak and hickory had beencut down or washed away, I stood a pretty good chance of finding thespot that I was in search of. Susan did not take this hopeful view ofthe situation. She was very melancholy. 

Following the old man's directions, I drove down to the point on theroad that was nearest to where the Pequinky in former times had emptiedinto the bay; then I hitched the horse to a tree, and with Susan and thetape-measure began my explorations, They lasted scarcely five minutes. With no trouble at all I found the oak and the hickory--grown to begreat trees, as I had expected--and with the tape-measure we fixed thepoint midway between them in no time. Then I went back to the wagon forthe spade and the other things, Susan going along and dancing around andaround me in sheer delight. It is a fortunate trait of Susan's characterthat while her spirits sometimes do fall a very long distance in avery short time, they rise to proportionate heights with proportionaterapidity. 

The point that we had fixed between the trees was covered thickly withleaves, and when I had cleared these away and had begun to dig, I wassurprised to find that the soil came up freely, and was not mattedtogether with roots as wood soil ought to be. I should have paid moreattention to this curious fact, no doubt, had I not been so profoundlystirred by the excitement incident to the strange work in which I wasengaged. As for Susan, the dear creature said that she had creeps allover her, for she knew that the old pirate's ghost must be hoveringnear, and she begged me to notify her when I came to the skeleton, sothat she might look away. I told her that I did not expect to find askeleton, but she replied that this only showed how ignorant _I_ was ofpirate ceremonial; that it was the rule with all pirates when buryingtreasure to sacrifice a human life, and to bury the dead body over thehidden gold. She admitted, however--upon my drawing her attention to thefact that the treasure which we were in the act of digging up had beenplaced here by my relative only for temporary security--that in thisparticular instance the human sacrifice part of the pirate programmemight have been omitted. 

Just as we had reached this conclusion--which disappointed Susan alittle, I think--my spade struck with a heavy thud against a piece ofwood. Clearing the earth away, I disclosed some fragments of rottenplank, and beneath these I saw something that glittered! Susan, standingbeside me on the edge of the hole, saw the glitter too. She did not sayone word; she simply put both her arms around my neck and kissed me. 

I rapidly removed the loose earth, and then with the pickaxe I heavedthe plank up bodily. But what we saw when the plank came away was nota chest full of doubloons, pieces-of-eight, moidores, and other suchancient coins, mingled with golden ornaments thickly studded withprecious stones; no, we saw the very bright lid of a tin box, a circularbox, rather more than two feet in diameter. There was a small roundhole in the centre of the lid, into which a little roll of newspaperwas stuffed--presumably to keep the sand out--and beside this hole Inoticed, soldered fast to the lid, a small brass plate on which my eyecaught the word "Patented. " It was strange enough to find the tin box insuch perfect preservation while the stout oak plank above it had rottedinto fragments; but the wisp of newspaper, and the brass plate with itsutterly out-of-place inscription, were absolutely bewildering. My headseemed to be going around on my shoulders, while something inside of itwas buzzing dreadfully. Suddenly Susan exclaimed, in a tone of disgustand consternation: "It's--it's that perfectly horrid churn-wash-boiler!"

As she spoke these doomful words I recalled Old Jacob's drunken story, which I now perceived must have been true, and the dreadful thoughtflashed into my mind that Gregory Wilkinson must have gone crazy, andthat this dreary practical joke was the first result of his madness. Susan meanwhile had sunk down by the side of the hole and was weepingsilently. 

As a vent to my outraged feelings I gave the wretched tin vessel atremendous poke with the spade, that caved in one side of it and knockedthe lid off. I then perceived that within it was an oblong packagecarefully tied up in oiled silk, and on bending down to examine thepackage more closely I perceived that it was directed to Susan. With adogged resolve to follow out Gregory Wilkinson's hideous pleasantryto the bitter end, I lifted the package out of the box--it was prettyheavy--and began to open it. Inside the first roll of the cover was aletter that also was directed to Susan. She had got up by this time, andread it over my shoulder. 

 "My dear Susan, --I have decided not to wait until I die to do what little good I can do in the world. You will be glad, I am sure, to learn that I have made arrangements for the immediate erection of the steam-laundry at the asylum, as well as for the material improvement in several other ways of that excellent institution. 

 "At the same time I desire that you and your husband shall have the benefit immediately of the larger portion of the legacy that I always have intended should be yours at my death. It is here (in govt. 4's), and I hope with all my heart that your trip to Europe will be a pleasant one. I am very affectionately yours, "Gregory Wilkinson. "

"And to think, " said Susan--as we drove home through the twilight, bearing our sheaves with us and feeling very happy over them--"and tothink that it should turn out to be your cousin Gregory Wilkinsonwho was the family pirate and had a hoard, and not yourgreat-great-great-uncle, after all!"